FROM THE MOUTH OF A MAID
Under a sudden stimulus of rallies, red fire, and band-music, the
campaign blossomed promisingly. Democracy's dark hints that the dominant
party had been rent by factional strife were suddenly answered by an
outrush of spellbinders from Republican headquarters, a flood of
literature, and an astonishing display of active harmony. Chairman Luke
Presson received compliments for the manner in which he had held his
fire until he "had seen the whites of the enemy's eyes." He replied to
such compliments with fine display of modest reserve, and in private
gritted his teeth and swore over the statement that General Waymouth
issued to the voters of the State--a document that bound the party to a
professed programme of honest reorganization. The treasurer of the State
Committee drew checks amounting to more than fifteen thousand dollars to
pay for the printing, postage, and mailing of those statements--a bitter
expense, indeed, considering the nature of the promises. Presson saw
only gratuitous stirring of trouble in the hateful declarations the
General made. It was his theory that in politics voters never arose and
demanded reforms until some disturber shook them up and reminded them
that reforms were needed.
General Waymouth did not take the stump. His age forbade. He remained
away from headquarters. But Harlan Thornton was posted there, his
vigilant representative and executive. In his attitude toward Harlan the
State chairman ran the gamut of cajolery, spleen, wrath, and
resentment--and final disgust. It was a situation almost intolerable for
Presson. But a chain of circumstances--events unescapable and unique in
politics--bound him to the wheel of the victor.
Harlan understood the chairman's state of mind. Day by day he made his
discourse with that gentleman as brief as possible, and he kept away
from the Presson home. His action was dictated by a feeling of delicacy,
in view of the father's sentiments. Presson treated him in business
hours as a prisoner would treat his ball and chain. And Presson showed
no desire to take that badge of his servitude home with him. Enduring
Harlan in the committee headquarters strained his self-possession daily.
So the young man lied brazenly in reply to the blandly courteous notes
of invitation from Mrs. Presson, who continued alert to the promising
social qualifications of General Waymouth's chief lieutenant. He pleaded
work. It was true in a measure. The day was filled with duties to which
he applied himself unflaggingly.
But from the supper-table he hurried out each evening into the country,
escaping from the city by the side streets, tramping miles of lane and
highway and field. His muscles craved the exertion. The city oppressed
him. His unwonted toil within four walls sapped his energy.
One evening he stepped aside from the highway. A horse, trotting
smartly, was overtaking him. But the horse did not pass him. It slowed
down to his stride, and Madeleine Presson called him from her trap. She
was alone.
"As this is the campaign of 'honesty,' I'll be honest with you," she
said. "This is not an accidental meeting. I have been guessing at the
roads you might take, and have been on your trail for days. That's a
bold confession for a girl to make; but I've got even a bolder request:
please climb up here and ride."
He climbed up. He went up with alacrity. From the first of their
acquaintance the girl had interested him--and yet it was more than mere
interest or feminine attraction. Her culture, her keen analysis of
events and men, her knowledge of conditions informed and instructed him.
Her subtle humor and droll insight into the characters of those who
attempted to pose in the public eye entertained him, for he lacked
humor. But, most of all, her satire gave him a truer perspective. Fresh
from the north country, where his knowledge of public men had been
limited to the information which newspapers had given him, he had
classed them wrongly. His own gravity had given them too eminent
qualities. The girl, knowing them, had pricked their assumptions with
good-humored satire, and he looked at them again and found them as she
said. As he sat beside her and the horse walked on, he was conscious
that in avoiding her he had been depriving himself both of entertainment
and valuable instruction. It was a rather selfish reflection, but he
could not help it.
"Now, Mr. Harlan Thornton, from what my father says about the house,
when he's so angry that he really doesn't know what it is he's saying, I
understand you're playing hob with all the traditions of politics. In
order to be honest, do you find it necessary to oppose all the things my
father wants to do? If you dare to say so you'll be called on to have
some very serious conversation with my father's daughter!"
"I don't want any differences with your father--or with you, Miss
Presson," he declared, earnestly. "I honestly don't! It all seems to be
a mighty mixed-up mess. I sometimes wish I'd stayed back home in the
woods. I'm too little a fellow to be in such a big game. I'm afraid I'm
so small I can only see one side of it."
"You admit there are two sides?"
"My grandfather and your father have impressed that on me pretty
strongly."
"Isn't there any good in the other side? Do you mean to tell me that all
the men in politics in this State are wrong except you and old General
Waymouth?"
"No, but it's the way of doing things. I guess it's that."
She drew her horse to a stop. The country road was quiet. The hush of
the starry August night was over all.
"Mr. Thornton," she said, looking him squarely in the eyes, "with all
due respect to the mighty masculine, I believe you are in need of a few
suggestions from a woman's standpoint. You haven't acquired the art of
flattery. If so, you'd be gallant and say I have just as much acumen as
you have honesty."
"I'll say it! It's so!" he protested.
"No, you're too late. I very unmodestly gave myself the compliment. Now
I'm going to tell you where you are wrong in this whole matter, Mr.
Thornton. You are reckoning without the human instruments that you must
employ. I'll wait just a moment and let that remark sink into your mind.
You are a bit slow about grasping the full purport of remarks, Mr.
Harlan Thornton." There was a touch of her satiric humor in her tone.
"Now, you don't fully understand, even yet. I think I'll have to
illustrate. I've already told you that I've watched matters pretty
closely at the capital. I like to see young men come here with ideals
and succeed, but, alas, they do not."
"They let themselves be bought or bribed or bossed, probably," blurted
Harlan.
"I'm not talking about that kind. They are too obvious and too common.
I complimented my own self. Now you are insulting yourself by jumping at
conclusions. You should have a better opinion of yourself, sir. I have.
I do not believe you could be bought or bossed or even coaxed from what
you considered your honest duty. You do not need to assure me. But you
might be _convinced_, Mr. Thornton--convinced by good reasons--that it
is not a young man's duty to ruin his own prospects and his own
influence by undertaking something as impracticable as though he tried
to be a meteor by holding a candle in his hand and jumping off a roof. I
could praise his imagination, but not his judgment."
She waited a moment. She gazed at him with sudden sympathy.
"You are a straightforward young man, used to winning your way by direct
means--axe to the tree, cant-dog to the rolling log, but that isn't the
way in politics. I know this preachment from me sounds strange. It may
offend you, but you mustn't allow yourself to be offended. You have
simply quarrelled with the men who have tried to tell you--it's no use
for your grandfather or my father to talk with you. Men do quarrel too
easily. I am taking a woman's advantage of you, sir. I said I would
illustrate. I will. One of the finest young men I ever knew came down to
the legislature and started in to expose and hold up every appropriation
measure that had the least appearance of being padded. Just straight-out
and blunt honesty, you understand. A little affectation, too. A bit of
self-advertising as well. But we all excuse a little self-consciousness
in youth. Well, he simply became a red rag to the House. They sneered
and hissed when he stood up. Just in blind rage they voted for every
appropriation he opposed. He did much more harm than he did good. He
didn't get his own appropriations for the district he represented. And
it killed him in politics and in his law business. The happy people did
not acclaim him as their faithful watchdog of the treasury. They merely
pronounced him a bore with a swelled head. You see, I can talk political
talk with all the phrases, Mr. Thornton."
"But he was right, wasn't he--fundamentally right?"
"He _meant_ to be right--that's the term to use. But he forgot that he
must use human instruments in order to accomplish anything. And he just
failed miserably."
"What would you expect him to do--join in, and be just like the others?
Where would any good come out of anything?"
"Now, you are insisting again that there is good only on one side of the
question. That's bigotry. It's what I'm trying to warn you against. Some
one has said that life is compromise. It's true of politics, if you're
going to get the most out of it. I know what you are undertaking.
General Waymouth hasn't left much to the imagination in his letter. And
I've talked with others. And so I know how visionary you are."
"You've talked with Linton--that's the one you've talked with!" declared
Harlan, indignantly. "And if he's told you what I have told him in
confidence he's more of a sneak than I've already found him out to be."
"Mr. Linton did not consider that you were making any secret of your
principles. And you'll excuse me, but I think his principles are exactly
as good as yours. You are talking now like the ramrodders. Their first
retort to any one who differs with them is to call names."
"But he deserted General Waymouth under fire. He promised, and went back
on that promise."
"According to all political good sense and in any other times but these,
when men seem to be running wild, General Waymouth was politically out
of the game. It's all fine and grand in story-books, Mr. Thornton, for
the hero to sacrifice everything for his ideals, but in these very
practical days he's only classed as a fool and kicked to one side."
"You defend Linton, then? Is that the kind of a man you hold up as a
success, Miss Presson?" His grudge showed in his tone.
"You will please understand, sir, that we are not discussing theories
just now. This isn't a question of what the world ought to be. It's the
plain fact about what a man must be if he's to get results. You and I
both have heard your grandfather say many times that he'd like to play
politics with angels--if only he could find the angels. It's hard to own
up, when you're young, that human nature is just as it is. I understand
how you feel. I know you feel it's a very strange thing for me to
do--talk to you like this. But I want you to understand that my father
has had nothing to do with it."
He turned to her accusingly.
"But I know perfectly well," he said, bitterly, "that it isn't any
personal interest you take in me that makes you say it. You don't think
enough of me for that." It was resentment so naively boyish that her
astonishment checked her remonstrance. He rushed on. "You hold up Linton
for me to follow. That's the kind of a man you admire. He's an orator,
and he's smart, and he wins. I'm only an accident. You meant that when
you said that General Waymouth won out only because matters were mixed
up in politics. You don't care anything about me, personally. But you're
talking to me because my grandfather asked you to. That's it." He
guessed shrewdly.
That outburst betrayed him. This young man from the north country was
very human after all, she decided.
"I have said before, this is a campaign of honesty. Your grandfather did
ask me to talk to you. I didn't have the heart to refuse him, for I'm
very fond of him."
It was an acknowledgment that stung his pride. But more than all, it
stirred that vague rancor he had felt the first time he had seen Linton
appropriate her.
He did not choose gallant words for reply.
"He has set you on me, has he, to pull me away from what I think is
right? He wants me to be like the rest of 'em, eh? I can be an
understudy for Herbert Linton and an errand boy for the State machine! I
didn't think, Miss Presson, that you--"
"You'd better not go any further, Mr. Harlan Thornton. My affection for
an old man who has set his heart on your success has brought me into
this affair, and I assure you I don't enjoy the situation. You are not
asked to betray any one, or desert any high moral pinnacle, or do
anything else that the moralists say all these fine things about without
knowing what they mean half the time. You are reminded of this: that
there's only one General Waymouth. There's a sudden big call for him
because factions have got into a row with each other. Folks will rally
around him for a little while--it's a sort of revival sentiment. But you
are not a General Waymouth. He'll be excused by sentiment, you'll simply
be branded as one of the common run of ramrodders who try to achieve the
impossible with human nature--a disturbing element in State
politics--and your career will be spoiled. Now I've delivered my
message, and done what I promised your grandfather I'd do."
She turned her horse, and started him back toward town.
There was silence between them for a time.
"So, if I weren't Thelismer Thornton's grandson you wouldn't take any
interest in me at all?" he inquired, sourly.
"A very impudent and unnecessary question, Mr. Harlan Thornton. I'm
afraid your grandfather is right--you have stayed in the woods too
long."
Longer silence.
He was more humble when he spoke again. "I don't want you to think I'm
what I may seem to be, Miss Presson. But what is there I can do in
politics, just now, different from what I'm doing? I have taken my side
with the General. I propose to stay there, of course. But I do not want
to have people think I'm a fool. And I haven't heard much else from any
one since I started out." There was wistfulness in his voice. He
suddenly felt drawn to her. He craved her counsel. It was the mastery of
the woman, more worldly-wise. He was bewildered and ashamed. The image
of Clare Kavanagh was not dimmed in his soul. She had been with him
daily in his thoughts. He knew that he felt affection for her. It was
tenderness, desire to protect, the real impulse of the man toward his
mate. But the feeling was all unexpressed and incoherent.
And yet Madeleine Presson, more than ever before, attracted him
powerfully. She had the elements that he had never seen and experienced
in womankind. Just at that moment she dominated, for his passion had
betrayed him into a rather puerile outbreak.
Subtle analysis of the emotions was beyond him. He did not understand.
His life had trained him along more primitive lines of selection. But he
realized now that he was trying to probe something in his soul that
defied his rather limited powers of judging. He had not given his heart
unreservedly, he had not pledged himself. Clare Kavanagh had repented of
a child's weakness and had run away from him, vaguely hinting that she
would forget him. This masterful young woman, driving him back to town,
her determined profile outlined against the gloom as he gazed shyly at
her, did not appear to be interested in him, except as a rebel to
authority and needing chastisement.
The child of the woods, as he thought of her, stirred all his
tenderness, his sympathy, and the soft ties of long intimacy and
understanding bound him.
But this girl, with beauty and brains, on his own level of independence
of thought, stirred new desires and ambitions in him. She was helpmate
and counsellor. He wondered if newer times and conditions did not demand
stronger qualities than mere womanhood in the wife who was to accompany
a man into the vicissitudes of public life. Not that he felt that he was
more than an humble instrument of the real power. But he fell to
considering the subject from the general viewpoint. His own experiences
had awakened new ideas that he pondered, having a very provocative
suggestion at his side.
Still more humbly he asked her: "If you have been thinking the matter
over, Miss Presson, what advice do you give me?"
"I advise you to have a serious talk with your grandfather. He has had
much experience. Use your own judgment, too, but be ready to hear the
evidence. You have not shown that willingness, yet, so far as I can
determine. I haven't any advice of my own to offer. I'll not presume.
Only this: be as honest as you can, but don't be so impractically honest
that you chop down all your bridges behind you and neglect to gather
timber for the bridges ahead of you."
Even in the gloom she understood that he was puzzled.
"Really, you know, I haven't written any handbook on practical politics,
Mr. Thornton," she said, her humor coming to the rescue. "I have talked
to you as though I had. But I've only talked to you with a woman's
intuition in such matters--and you remember, too, I've seen much of
legislative life. You can be good in politics--but, oh, don't be
impractical! I want you to succeed."
"You do?"
"I most certainly do." She said it heartily.
No other word passed between them until they arrived in front of the
hotel.
He reached up, after he had alighted, and grasped her hand. She had
impulsively put out her own to meet his.
"I'll try to be--" he began, and then hesitated. He had been pondering.
But his thoughts were still so confused that he could not think of the
word that expressed exactly what he desired to make himself.
"Be human," she said, smiling down on him. "You won't find yourself of
much use in the world unless you cultivate the faculty of personal
contact, and you musn't try to leap into politics in this State right
from the pedestal of a demigod. You may be able to elevate yourself
later, but just now, my dear young friend, you should be _reasonable_.
That's a word that means much in handling men and affairs. Now I hope
I've softened you so that you will listen to your good grandfather when
he has advice for you."
She did not allow herself to be too serious. There was the delicious
drawl in her tone that had attracted him at first.
He went to his room and sat down to digest that political philosophy. If
some one beside Madeleine Presson had said it, it would have seemed to
him like the voice of the temptress. But she had already won his
confidence in her sincerity. He wished that he could feel that her
interest in him had more of a personal quality than she had admitted. He
did not like to remember that it was simply affection for his
grandfather that prompted her. He did not understand very well what he
was to do to obey her suggestions. He did not understand himself exactly
at that moment. But along with his loyalty to General Waymouth a new
desire sprang into life within him. He wanted to show Luke Presson's
daughter that Harlan Thornton could play the game of practical politics
as well as Herbert Linton, and in the end would be more deserving of her
respect.